


The Romantics

by skivvysupreme



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Minor Canonical Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 16:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3736510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skivvysupreme/pseuds/skivvysupreme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outside the house, elsewhere, the war rages on. Inside, they can try to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Romantics

Kurt shivers in the freezing night air, snow falling fast and thick around him. He steadies himself, gets a solid grip on his axe, then lifts and swings the axe down on the thick stump standing upright on the chopping block. He keeps his storm-blue eyes on his mark the entire time, but the blade sinks through the wood at a slight angle. Not his neatest work, but he’s been at this for hours, trying to stock up the firewood before the snowstorm gets overwhelming.

His final chop complete, Kurt tops off the heavy stack he’s built up in the rusty old wheelbarrow, then rolls it, grunting with effort, through the snowy backyard and around to the front of the house. “Should have seen this coming,” he grumbles, struggling to keep the wheelbarrow straight and upright with all its wooden weight. “Gets warmer all week, but the sky stays gray, should have prepared days ago, this is—oh my god!”

There’s a boy lying face-down and unmoving in the snow, his dark, curly hair messy and sprinkled with white.

“Dad!” Kurt yells, leaning the heavy wheelbarrow against the side of the house. He crouches next to the boy and tugs his gloves off, then presses two fingers to the base of the boy’s neck. The pulse is strong and steady.

Oh, he hasn’t frozen to death. That’s good.

Kurt gently turns the boy over, and he suddenly jerks awake, gritting his teeth in pain and gesturing vaguely towards his leg. As Kurt looks for the source of his pain, he notices the boy’s navy blue jacket and the matching, flat-topped cap lying near his head. Kurt raises his eyes and spots a canteen and a musket abandoned in the snow where the boy’s footprints had started to slide together.

Oh, god. This boy is a soldier.

Kurt _despises_ soldiers.

“Kurt, what is it?” Warm yellow light washes over Kurt and the soldier as Kurt’s father opens the front door.

“He’s hurt. A soldier.”

Kurt can’t see his father’s face, silhouetted in the doorway, but he doesn’t say anything, so Kurt clarifies, “Yankee,” as he looks down at the boy’s uniform. His father’s posture relaxes a little.

The soldier is no older than Kurt, so seventeen at most. He’s got a strong jaw, thick eyebrows, and a dusting of stubble, but his eyes are huge and childlike when he blinks, teary-eyed, up at Kurt. He looks so… _innocent_ , Kurt thinks. So afraid.

There’s a crunch of snow underfoot as his father steps towards them. “Is he hurt bad? Bleeding or anything?”

“Dad, no! Stay inside, it’s freezing out here, you’re not well!”

“You think I’m gonna make you drag him into the house yourself?” He crouches down, gathering the soldier boy in his arms, and nods towards his feet, telling Kurt to take his bottom half.

Kurt tries holding him around the ankles, but the soldier lets out a sob and tries to move his right leg away.

“No, no,” he whimpers, shaking his head and sending snow flying from his wet curls. He can’t articulate anything else, it seems, just groans in pain again, clearly indicating he doesn’t want that leg grabbed anymore.

“Here, let’s try this.” Kurt shifts the soldier’s legs so that he can cradle them from the left side instead, letting the boy keep as little pressure as possible on whatever part of his right leg is hurting him. They lift the boy, and the movement still spurs pained cries, but it’s not as terrible as it was a moment ago. And Kurt can’t—he doesn’t like seeing anyone in pain, but he can’t feel much sympathy for this boy. The sight of the boy’s Union cap, of that awful weapon, even the weariness of his injured body all stir memories that Kurt has tried to stamp out for the better part of a year. Kurt doesn’t want him anywhere near his home, not with what this horrible war has done to his family.

But he’s hurt. And, at the very least, he’s not one of the Rebels.

Kurt and his father carry the soldier into the house.

*****

“What’s your name, kid?”

The boy sits at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of stew. His injured leg is wrapped in a makeshift splint and propped up on a chair, and a thick blanket lays over his lap. His jacket, pants, and hat sit in another chair, along with his canteen and a rucksack that Kurt had found dropped in the snow a little farther away. The rifle has been left by the door, out of Kurt’s sight.

“Blaine, sir. Blaine Anderson.” He scrapes the bottom of his bowl with his spoon, then pushes the bowl away and puts his hands in his lap.

“Burt Hummel. I own a metalworking shop in town. And this is my son, Kurt, he helps me. Want some more stew? You look like you could use it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hummel, but I couldn’t possibly impose. You’ve been so generous already. And, hello Kurt, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Kurt, his back to the table as he stokes the fire, smiles despite himself. Blaine’s voice is soft and sweet, and his manners are impeccable.

“You aren’t imposing,” Burt says. He takes Blaine’s bowl, refills it, and places it in front of him. “It’s the least we can do.”

The noise Blaine makes is somewhere between a sigh and a disbelieving laugh as he stares at the food. He shifts in his chair a little, as much as his prone leg will allow, picks up his spoon, and says, “Thank you, again. I just couldn’t go any farther, and I saw the light coming through your window, so…”

Kurt stands near the table, arms crossed, and asks, “What were you doing out there? Did your company leave without you?”

Blaine looks up at him, suddenly looking much older than he is. His voice goes flat, even as his chin wobbles, and he says quietly, “They think I’m dead. And my best friend actually _is_ dead. I’m going home.”

Kurt looks away, the sorrowful, tired expression on Blaine’s face dropping something heavy into his gut. Blaine’s grief thickens and settles in the room, as if it’s trying to fill the cracks where Kurt and Burt’s grief had finally started to dull. “We should just take him to the road and let the next passing cavalry pick him up as soon as he’s well,” Kurt mutters, glancing over at his father. “He’s a deserter.”

“Please, don’t send me back!” Blaine reaches for Kurt’s hand. Kurt’s heart quickens at his grip, warm fingers squeezing at him until Blaine remembers himself and pulls away again. “Please. I just need a place to stay for the night, and then I’ll be on my way. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bring trouble, I just want to go home.”

Kurt clasps his hands together, one thumb rubbing over the phantom hold of Blaine’s fingers as he stares down at him, silent.

Burt sighs and rubs over the top of his bald head. “You’re not eighteen yet, are you?”

“No, sir. I’m sixteen.”

“Christ... Kid, you’re not a deserter. You’re not even a legal soldier. I’m not sending a sixteen-year-old back out there. Not with a bum leg, not out in this winter. And not back to war. We got a spare bed, you can stay with us.”

Kurt spins on his heel and hisses, “That bed is not _spare_. It’s Finn’s.”

Burt ignores him. The fact that Finn will not be using that bed goes without saying.

“I’ll find a way to earn my keep, I promise,” Blaine says, and though he recoils a little at the arch of Kurt’s eyebrow and the disdainful set to Kurt’s mouth, he barrels on, “I know my leg makes it difficult, but I’ll do whatever I can. Tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do it.”

“We don’t need you to do anything!” Kurt snaps.

“That’s enough, Kurt! Blaine, I don’t want you worrying about that just yet, all right? I’ll go get the room set up for you. Kurt, help him upstairs.”

*****

Blaine’s body is warm against Kurt as he helps him up the stairs. He has one arm wrapped around Kurt’s shoulders, and one of Kurt’s arms wrapped around his waist for support. Neither says anything, though Blaine stifles his pained noises every so often, and the air between them can’t be called anything less than uncomfortable.

The lantern Kurt keeps on the table between the two beds is lit, and for the first time in several months, the bed on the left side of the room is unmade. An extra blanket rests on top of the pillow, along with a set of sleeping garments—a set of Kurt’s own, he notices, bristling despite the knowledge that a set of Finn’s would have drowned the small-figured boy currently clinging to him.

Kurt changes clothes first, then helps Blaine into the loose pair of pants, letting him step into them before pulling them up far enough for Blaine to complete the job.

Blaine shivers in the drafty room, thanking Kurt for his help, and Kurt notices that he has goose bumps running across his strong-looking arms. His small nipples are also hard beneath his undershirt.

Thankfully, it’s dark enough in the room for Kurt’s blush to go unnoticed.

When Blaine is settled in the bed, his shirt on and blankets layered on top of him, he glances over at Kurt and says, quietly as he can, “I promise I’ll stay out of your way while I’m here.”

Kurt lays in his own bed and looks back at him. Blaine’s watching Kurt through his eyelashes like a chastised puppy, almost pouting, because he can clearly tell Kurt doesn’t want him there but doesn’t have much power to change it. And Kurt can tell, in that imploring way Blaine’s looking at him, that Blaine _would_ change it, would set off for home in the morning on his broken ankle with thick snowflakes still falling from the sky, if only to not put Kurt out, even if his own physical well-being suffered for it.

Blaine… isn’t bad. Or at least, he doesn’t seem to be the rampaging monster that soldiers have become in Kurt’s mind. The more time Blaine spends in his presence, the less Kurt can picture him that way. Blaine’s eyes are molten amber in the lantern light, and his curls fall gently over his forehead. He has such a friendly-looking, open face. A handsome, attractive one, at that.

But there Blaine goes, inspiring dangerous thoughts on top of the grievous ones.

Kurt blows out the lantern so they can’t see each other anymore and whispers, “I don’t think that’s likely, Blaine, but I will appreciate your effort.”

*****

Kurt finds that he wants Blaine in his way as much as possible.

There isn’t much work they can do outside—not that there is much work to do at all, as Kurt and Burt did happen to prepare for winter in the general sense, sudden snowstorms notwithstanding—but Blaine turns out to be a brilliant indoor companion. It is true that he can’t do heavier chores until his leg heals, but he takes to his seated tasks with ease and enthusiasm. His manners never cease, and he maintains the utmost respect for the Hummels’ home, cleaning up after himself when he can and always leaving Kurt’s carefully-arranged kitchen as he found it.

Blaine finds Kurt humming one day as he sits at the kitchen table, mending a waistcoat. It isn’t an arbitrary melody; its intervals are complicated and lively, something Kurt has obviously committed to memory and gone over time and time again. “You enjoy music?” Blaine asks, limping into a chair across from him.

“Mmm, very much so.”

“So do I. Music is my favorite thing in the world. I apologize for interrupting you, but… I think I know that tune.”

“Second movement of the _Symphonie fantastique_ ,” Kurt says, and as Blaine raises his eyebrows, he continues, “by Hector—“

“—Berlioz! Yes!”

Kurt freezes, his needle hovering over the wool. “My late mother, she used to take me to Columbus to hear the orchestra, and I fell in love with it. But you… you know Berlioz? You know French composers?”

“Of course I do,” Blaine says, his voice low and serious as he leans forward in his seat with his face lit up in excitement. His bound leg minimizes his mobility, but he’s no less effusive for it. “My parents took me to concerts too. I mean, I’ve never heard the _Symphonie_ played in full, but I was learning the piano arrangement before I left home. That was a lovely rendition, Kurt. Your voice is beautiful.”

Kurt’s mouth falls open for a moment, and then he flutters his eyelashes and says, “Most people tell me it’s a girl’s voice.”

“That’s hardly an insult, but how can it be a girl’s voice if it belongs to you?”

He laughs in surprise, the logic so undeniable that he’s shocked he never thought of it that way. “That’s a very good question, Blaine.”

Blaine smiles, albeit a little sadly, because it seems no one has told Kurt these things before. “Beautiful, Kurt. Truly. And I’m sorry about your mother. It’s a shame I didn’t get to meet her. Especially if she was half as wonderful as you.” He settles back in his chair after he says it, watching Kurt’s reaction with the tiniest of smiles on his lips.

The spark of hope in Kurt’s chest blooms into flame faster than Kurt can douse it. He couldn’t stop the huge grin scrunching up his face if he tried.

Kurt spots Blaine reading one afternoon, a novel called _Frankenstein_ by Mary Shelley, and Kurt is so intrigued to find Blaine reading a female author that he immediately begins to ask questions. (Kurt’s brutish classmates, before the war began, would never have done such a thing, if they bothered to read at all.) Blaine had picked up the book when passing through a town with his company three months ago, and he has read it so many times now that he doesn’t mind starting over with Kurt.

The boys do the same with Kurt’s well-worn copy of _Pride & Prejudice_.

They trade the few poems they each have memorized. Blaine recites _Ode to a Nightingale_ so lyrically, so passionately, as he alternates wistful staring into space and wistful staring into Kurt’s eyes, that Kurt has a hard time not blushing at Blaine’s glances afterwards. And when Kurt gets swept up in the rhythmic, mad, mournful beauty of _The Raven,_ he catches Blaine watching him with rapt, euphoric attention, edging into awe. The way Blaine looks at Kurt both brightens and softens after that, and it doesn’t change back.

Weeks begin to pass in this way. Never in his life has Kurt enjoyed being stuck indoors this much.

Outside the house, elsewhere, the war rages on.

Inside, they can try to forget.

*****

Kurt can no longer imagine his days without Blaine in their home. He remembers the days after his brother and stepmother went off to war, when the Union asked for soldiers and nurses and Finn and Carole answered the call. He remembers the day Carole’s letter arrived with the news no mother should ever have to send. But between that day and the day Blaine collapsed at their door… there is nothing. Those days are shadows, a half-life of silence and fury with only numbness in between. The grief still catches Kurt and his father by surprise, on occasion, but having someone else in the house has helped lessen the sting of it.

Especially someone as miraculous as Blaine. And Blaine goes quiet and pensive at times, but so does Kurt.

Kurt and Blaine wake together, work around the house together, read together, and sing together. And at the end of the day, of course, they sleep together.

This is when things become complicated. Nighttime sees everything.

Kurt wakes one night to find Blaine crying in his sleep and murmuring words that Kurt can’t make out. Once his eyes have adjusted to the darkness, Kurt can see Blaine’s head moving back and forth on his pillow, his noises becoming more and more distressed. A particularly loud, thick sob erupts from him and Kurt can’t take it anymore; he rises from his bed, feet freezing on the cold wooden floor, and crosses the room.

“Blaine,” he whispers, giving Blaine’s shoulder a hard shake. “Blaine, it’s Kurt. Wake up.”

Blaine’s eyes pop open, and after a moment of recognition, he surges upright, throwing himself into Kurt’s arms. “They killed him, Kurt, they killed David,” he sobs. “They killed David, they—“

“Shhh, shhh. Who is David?” Kurt wraps his arms around Blaine’s back, rubbing between his shoulder blades to try and calm him.

“My best friend. We fought right alongside each other. Now he’s dead.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Blaine keeps talking, all the things he hasn’t spoken in recent weeks tumbling out of him at once. “I never cared that he was colored and he didn’t care that I’m—I’m—“

“Different. Like me,” Kurt supplies. He knows they’ve both felt it over the past few weeks. Now would seem an inappropriate time to pretend they haven’t.

Blaine doesn’t say anything for a while—Kurt panics for a second, because what if his instinct was wrong after all?—but then he sniffles and sighs, “Yes,” with an odd mix of sadness and relief. “David didn’t care about that. He said no one should be mistreated for things they couldn’t help, not for skin color or anything else. His family is free but he said it wasn’t right to just forget his brothers and sisters in the rebel states, he said it felt like he was abandoning them if he didn’t fight.”

Kurt’s afraid of the answer, but he asks, “You saw him die?”

Blaine nods against Kurt’s shoulder, and Kurt squeezes him tighter. “I joined because I wanted to prove to my father that I wasn’t a coward. My brother went west for gold a long time ago, and, um… my family has money, so my father paid the fee to get out of it. And I wasn’t of age but I wanted to show him I could… I don’t know. Be a man. Do something meaningful. It was for something I believe in, but then David died, right next to me. And I—I just couldn’t. I ran.”

Kurt feels his shoulder getting wet as Blaine cries. He doesn’t stop him.

“I think I hated you when you first showed up here.”

Blaine lifts his head and sits up. They can barely see each other, only the soft light outside coming through the curtains, but neither dares to turn on the lantern. “You think?”

“That seems like a long time ago, now, it’s hard to say. But you were the war to me. The whole thing,” Kurt says. “The war split my family apart. My dad would have fought, but he’s been sick. And Finn and I weren’t of age, but Carole was going, and Finn felt… a sense of duty. And we knew he’d go no matter what our parents said. I just…” and here, Kurt begins to cry as well, “I couldn’t see how his life was worth it. I still don’t. I know it’s a war, but how do you balance this kind of cost? What is it going to be like when all this is over and Carole comes home? _If_ she comes home?”

“I don’t know, Kurt.”

“And this is just us. It’s… it goes on forever. No one can take his place. And there are thousands of families out there like ours, with lost sons and brothers and all kinds of people, and how can you have that much missing in the world and have everything just… keep going, after all this? What’s left?”

Blaine takes both of his hands between them and holds them up to his chest. “We are, Kurt. But I don’t really know what comes next. I don’t. And I don’t know what it’s going to be like when I get home, either.”

Suddenly, that future loss looms dark on the horizon, mattering to an extent that it didn’t, not so long ago. “I don’t want you to go when the season finally changes. I know you have a family and you have to go home at some point, but… I don’t want you to,” Kurt whispers, sliding his hands out of Blaine’s grasp and wrapping them around his shoulders again.

“Westerville isn’t far. But that’s a month away, Kurt. I’m here right now, okay?”

Kurt feels rather than sees Blaine’s palm cup his cheek, and when Blaine’s lips touch his, he isn’t expecting it. Blaine is warm, and his lips are soft as he kisses Kurt, leaning forward with everything he’s got. When Kurt starts to kiss back, they fumble a little, inexperienced mouths briefly catching chins and noses and clacking teeth when they get too enthusiastic, but they settle into a slower, steadier rhythm after a while. All they know is relief and warmth and tingling and the strong grip of each other’s bodies as they lay tangled together on Blaine’s bed.

And isn’t that something? At some point, Kurt has begun to think of the bed as Blaine’s. They fall asleep cuddled together under the blankets, both exhausted and drained but much more content than they’ve been in ages.

One month later, when Blaine returns to Westerville, Kurt feels a heaviness in his heart that he hasn’t noticed in weeks. The letters the boys exchange become precious, and they write as often as they can.

One month after that, when the war ends, Carole returns. It is rough to start, coming back to that house without one of her sons in it, and she isn’t quite the same Carole she was when she left, but the three of them work through it and re-learn each other as best they can.

When summer starts two months after that, Burt Hummel’s new metalworking apprentice shows up at their door. The young war veteran is as polite and charming and handsome as ever—but thankfully, upright, uninjured, and fully conscious this time.

And Kurt loves him.

**Author's Note:**

> An anon on tumblr prompted: "what would happen if soldier!Blaine had to take shelter at the Hummel household for a bit because of the civil war and he had to share a room with Kurt and they ended up getting more than friendly ;)"


End file.
